Britain new 'Digital Services Tax' to target online giants

"It's clearly not sustainable, or fair, that digital platform businesses can generate substantial value in the UK without paying tax here in respect of that business," finance minister Philip Hammond said in his annual budget on Monday.

Britain said it would tax the revenues of online platforms like Google, Facebook and Amazon to create a fairer tax system that had not kept pace with changing digital business models.

"It's clearly not sustainable, or fair, that digital platform businesses can generate substantial value in the UK without paying tax here in respect of that business," finance minister Philip Hammond said in his annual budget on Monday.

The tax will be designed to ensure established tech giants, rather than start-ups, shoulder the burden, Hammond said. The Treasury said profitable companies would be taxed 2 per cent on the money they make from UK users from April 2020.